Vermont watchman & state journal: vol. 70, no. 2

"Gath" on Judge Poland.
George Alfred Townsend, (Gath) the reg-ular Washington correspondent of the Chi-cago Tribune, has at one time and another written sharp things of Judge Poland, par-ticularly of his course against polygamy. He is one of the raciest newspaper writers of the day, and whether for or against, his letters are more than commonly readable, and generally able, showing a keen insight into the case which he is taking up. The following is his regular letter to the Tribune under date of September 11th, immediately after the result was known of the contest in the second district. It did not come to our notice until the present week, but as one of the "opinions" in the case it is worth put-ting on record. It will be especially inter-esting to those politicians born since the credit mobilier investigation, and who have in some way received the impression that the chairman of that great Congressional in-quest is a "whitewasher." No more exact measure of the occasion and the ban has been put on record than "Gath" gives in the extract quoted below:
"Judge Poland's defeat has been variously re-ceived,—by some with, a chuckle, by others with a moral, by a good many with personal regret. As he is really defeated or withdrawn, and as the evils which men do are said to live after them, let not the good be wholly interred with his bones. If he was not personally honest, that quality of honesty was defunct amongst his contemporaries.
"He was a man to strike one with interest at first view, and, after a while, to be wholly forgot-ten, and, after some years, to recover his position in the mind, with strengthened consideration and respect. He was a very moderate and conserva-tive man,—slavery being no issue where he lived, and without advocates, so that, although anti-slavery, he was anything but radical. He was a Judge by long career, and a firm though mild Judge,—not reckless nor ferocious in any sen-tence he administered, but, within the orbit of his severity, unflinching. As a Judge, he served his state faithfully; as a lawyer, he performed the most laborious and ingratefnl work of this period, the revision of the laws, which, he stuck to, with a small forlorn hope, until the mighty task was done, and, if he be politically buried now, this tome in granite might be his covering. He was a national man and a Magistrate, as a Senator is a Magistrate by the constitution, advisory of the Chief Magistrate; and, as a Senator, his work was mild, diligent and broad,—connected with a pro-portion of self-respect which more ardent men are apt to forget in their unscrupulous precipitancy to be scrupulously earnest. As a Magistrate in the House of Representatives, he led the van of investigations, and expired under the growing Jacobinism of that kind of fury, as Vaugirard and Lafayette were trampled out by a lower and wilder order of reformers. That he was not in-different to the public outcry, was shown in that process against the Credit Mobilier people, where every agency of the party, and all the imploration of the opposite party, were exerted to procure a mere exhortation without a victim. He brought in both a finding and culprit, and they were the actual culprits. Other men were inveigled by, through, or with them; but these latter public opinion or private pain punished sufficiently. The two men Poland presented to Congress with-out the fortitude to expel them as he suggested, were the most powerful in their parties. Brooks was the government's own sworn and trusted di-rector. To his trust he was a rapacious traitor. Ames was the representative of that mercenary dullness in the North which is color-blind on that part of the moral spectrum where honor stands. For his besotted obtuseness he was presented to Congress for expulsion, as was Brooks for that kind of betrayal involving a little of the crime called black-mailing, so popularly referred to of late, by his obituarians and executors.
"The work of the Poland committee at that period bore a moral significance scarcely less than the impeachment of Strafford by Pym and Coke. The chairman, in his venerable white hair, straight carriage, blue coat, and buff vest, pre-served health of skin and hue of eye, and respect-ful, grave address, conducted the proceedings like a Moderator, extracting the truth without raising his tone of voice or losing his mien of behavior; and, when he brought in the report, and stood up to defend it against General Butler, James B. Beck, Fernando Wood, and a number of very capable debators, all hotly committed to save the culprits, he prevailed with that great grand jury which desired justice sufficient, but no more. I have always thought that, for his temperament, so respectful and inoffensive, it required the high-est kind of legislative fortitude to face Brooks and Ames, and face them there, in the midst of a hostile Congress, facing them both as he spoke those sentences so terrible because so calm. Sub-sequent investigations have contained more pyro-technics, and have been supported, by an outside pressure, threatening and baleful, and, as in all such cases, dignifying the defense. The report of the Poland committee was no mere nosing affair in search of chops and tomato-sauce; it was a Congressional inquest. Passing up to the Senate, it reached a subject there as well. Amongst the many who rejoice in Poland's defeat are some who could never forgive that man for his work in 1872. Like some of them, he is retired, but with none of their reproach. He is retired by this fact more than any other: restiveness of other men long kept out of public career by his long tenure of office. I was in Vermont in 1871-2, and found at that time loud complaint that Poland would never die nor retire. The same is the case in every district where a man of predominant ex-perience and fitness lives. The English, wise in this respect, provide against such instability of the constituency by extending the opportunity of other boroughs to their statesmen."

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"Gath" on Judge Poland.
George Alfred Townsend, (Gath) the reg-ular Washington correspondent of the Chi-cago Tribune, has at one time and another written sharp things of Judge Poland, par-ticularly of his course against polygamy. He is one of the raciest newspaper writers of the day, and whether for or against, his letters are more than commonly readable, and generally able, showing a keen insight into the case which he is taking up. The following is his regular letter to the Tribune under date of September 11th, immediately after the result was known of the contest in the second district. It did not come to our notice until the present week, but as one of the "opinions" in the case it is worth put-ting on record. It will be especially inter-esting to those politicians born since the credit mobilier investigation, and who have in some way received the impression that the chairman of that great Congressional in-quest is a "whitewasher." No more exact measure of the occasion and the ban has been put on record than "Gath" gives in the extract quoted below:
"Judge Poland's defeat has been variously re-ceived,—by some with, a chuckle, by others with a moral, by a good many with personal regret. As he is really defeated or withdrawn, and as the evils which men do are said to live after them, let not the good be wholly interred with his bones. If he was not personally honest, that quality of honesty was defunct amongst his contemporaries.
"He was a man to strike one with interest at first view, and, after a while, to be wholly forgot-ten, and, after some years, to recover his position in the mind, with strengthened consideration and respect. He was a very moderate and conserva-tive man,—slavery being no issue where he lived, and without advocates, so that, although anti-slavery, he was anything but radical. He was a Judge by long career, and a firm though mild Judge,—not reckless nor ferocious in any sen-tence he administered, but, within the orbit of his severity, unflinching. As a Judge, he served his state faithfully; as a lawyer, he performed the most laborious and ingratefnl work of this period, the revision of the laws, which, he stuck to, with a small forlorn hope, until the mighty task was done, and, if he be politically buried now, this tome in granite might be his covering. He was a national man and a Magistrate, as a Senator is a Magistrate by the constitution, advisory of the Chief Magistrate; and, as a Senator, his work was mild, diligent and broad,—connected with a pro-portion of self-respect which more ardent men are apt to forget in their unscrupulous precipitancy to be scrupulously earnest. As a Magistrate in the House of Representatives, he led the van of investigations, and expired under the growing Jacobinism of that kind of fury, as Vaugirard and Lafayette were trampled out by a lower and wilder order of reformers. That he was not in-different to the public outcry, was shown in that process against the Credit Mobilier people, where every agency of the party, and all the imploration of the opposite party, were exerted to procure a mere exhortation without a victim. He brought in both a finding and culprit, and they were the actual culprits. Other men were inveigled by, through, or with them; but these latter public opinion or private pain punished sufficiently. The two men Poland presented to Congress with-out the fortitude to expel them as he suggested, were the most powerful in their parties. Brooks was the government's own sworn and trusted di-rector. To his trust he was a rapacious traitor. Ames was the representative of that mercenary dullness in the North which is color-blind on that part of the moral spectrum where honor stands. For his besotted obtuseness he was presented to Congress for expulsion, as was Brooks for that kind of betrayal involving a little of the crime called black-mailing, so popularly referred to of late, by his obituarians and executors.
"The work of the Poland committee at that period bore a moral significance scarcely less than the impeachment of Strafford by Pym and Coke. The chairman, in his venerable white hair, straight carriage, blue coat, and buff vest, pre-served health of skin and hue of eye, and respect-ful, grave address, conducted the proceedings like a Moderator, extracting the truth without raising his tone of voice or losing his mien of behavior; and, when he brought in the report, and stood up to defend it against General Butler, James B. Beck, Fernando Wood, and a number of very capable debators, all hotly committed to save the culprits, he prevailed with that great grand jury which desired justice sufficient, but no more. I have always thought that, for his temperament, so respectful and inoffensive, it required the high-est kind of legislative fortitude to face Brooks and Ames, and face them there, in the midst of a hostile Congress, facing them both as he spoke those sentences so terrible because so calm. Sub-sequent investigations have contained more pyro-technics, and have been supported, by an outside pressure, threatening and baleful, and, as in all such cases, dignifying the defense. The report of the Poland committee was no mere nosing affair in search of chops and tomato-sauce; it was a Congressional inquest. Passing up to the Senate, it reached a subject there as well. Amongst the many who rejoice in Poland's defeat are some who could never forgive that man for his work in 1872. Like some of them, he is retired, but with none of their reproach. He is retired by this fact more than any other: restiveness of other men long kept out of public career by his long tenure of office. I was in Vermont in 1871-2, and found at that time loud complaint that Poland would never die nor retire. The same is the case in every district where a man of predominant ex-perience and fitness lives. The English, wise in this respect, provide against such instability of the constituency by extending the opportunity of other boroughs to their statesmen."